


All They Had Seen and All They Had Lost

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Series: All They Had Lost [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Comrades in Arms, Drift Bond, Friendship/Love, M/M, Missing Scene, Team Hot Dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc and Stacker, in the spaces in between the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All They Had Seen and All They Had Lost

1.  
Stacker Pentecost was away when Hercules Hansen arrived with his son, Chuck, to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. He was off chasing another pilot, the Gipsy Danger’s former Ranger, the one who’d lost his brother up in Alaska. In a way, the chaos and his friend’s absence made it easier for Herc to arrive himself, since it had been a few really dodgy months since he’d seen Stacker and with other people around, keeping him busy as they towed the Striker Eureka into her bay, he didn’t have to think about their reunion. What to say to someone trying to hold the apocalypse at bay, someone you loved? His skills were many, but such expressions were not among them.

The shatterdome had changed since he was here last. A palpable sense of doom, the air thick with frustration and fear, the faces of the crew lined with weariness and worry. Only four Jaegers left, and the joke of kaiju-safe walls having landed their pathetic punch lines in Sydney just days ago. If Herc was this bitter and only a Ranger, how bad must it be for Stacker, the last remaining Marshal of the PPDC?

As he picked up his bag and gave Max a quick scratch under the layers of chin that ringed his thick neck, Herc turned and saw Stacker striding through the bay, Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket in tow. Stacker looked alarmingly older and wearier, but still proud and tall, still the handsomest man Herc had ever seen. Chuck gave Herc the side-eye as he became aware of Stacker’s presence; Herc just shrugged in response. They had no secrets, but they also didn’t talk about relationships -- those they had with others, and the one they had themselves.

Chuck had grown so bitter and distant in adulthood, when he hadn’t been like that as a boy. In the drift he relived the horrible choices Herc had had to make the day Scissure struck Sydney, poisonous flashbacks to the early resentment toward his father because of that choice. Though he’d mostly grown out of it, Chuck carried that like a scar, hidden but still accessible when he looked -- and the drift made you look, whether you wanted to or not.

In Herc’s darkest times, when he thought about it, maybe it didn’t do for a father and son or a mother and daughter to drift together, learning of the doubts their parents faced, the indecisions that had affected their upbringing, the choices made that molded their character. Herc was capable of controlling most of what he brought into the drift, most of the time, and he and Chuck were one of the best teams out there. So maybe it wasn’t a normal relationship, but then, what had been normal since that day in 2014?

Still, when they were introduced to Raleigh Beckett, Herc was embarrassed by Chuck’s behavior to a young man who’d given so much and lost so much more. He noticed the slight wince on Stacker’s face at the rudeness -- though he would know how shamed Herc was, and wouldn’t hold it against him. All those times in the drift as one, he and Stacker could still just glance at each other, feel the thread that pulled taut whenever they were together, understanding one another’s mind. He took his son away before he could embarrass them both any further.

He dropped his bag in the room he and Chuck would share -- Herc usually stayed in Stacker’s quarters when he was at PPDC command, but that was because Chuck rarely accompanied him anymore on official business -- and went to find Stacker and the scientists. Chuck graced him with another speaking look as he left the room, but Herc didn’t want to know exactly what it was supposed to say -- especially if it was about Stacker’s health. Chuck hadn’t seen the Marshal for some time, and hadn’t been aware of the serious decline. Sometimes Herc wasn’t even sure if Chuck would care. 

The urgency of this reunion had left Herc with a sensation he hadn’t felt in years, cold fear creeping through his chest, slow and steady, the way ice covered the sea up in Alaska. Did any of them really believe this eleventh-hour plan would work? Herc was unequivocally at Stacker’s side for whatever he intended to do, but the odds were against them.

After their bizarre science class -- Herc had come to realize he had no patience for eggheads and was glad once again that he was only second in command -- he went off to see to a few things for Striker Eureka, then wound his way to Stacker’s quarters. He knocked on the door and Stacker’s deep voice called “Enter.” Herc slid the bolt behind him, even though no one, not even Miss Mori, would ever interrupt them unexpectedly. “H,” Stack said. “I was hoping it would be you.” His voice slid like warm honey down Herc’s spine. Neither of them were especially talkative people, but Herc often found ways to get Stacker to tell him stories, just so he could luxuriate in that rich, deep voice.

“I was thinking about earlier. Seeing young Becket again. Don’t hold Chuck’s behavior against him. He’s afraid. Lashing out at everyone and everything because of the situation. It’s like he sees the Typhoon, Cherno, and us as the only things left.” He was aware that he was apologizing for his son again, that it had become rote.

“Can’t change his spots,” Stacker said with resignation. “He is what he is. But Becket can handle it. When he gets his pilot, he’ll be fine. I wouldn’t give him the chance if I didn’t believe that.”

Herc thought, “I know,” and Stacker smiled at him. They could still read each other, even though they hadn’t drifted for years. Whatever was on his mind, Stacker appeared to know, and it was the same in the other direction. “I also wanted to say...I could see the look on her face when we were talking. Mako deserves a shot. It’s time. You’ve always known it would come time.” They’d been over the subject of their children becoming pilots many times, especially since Chuck had made Ranger.

Stacker shook his head. “She can’t handle it. The need for revenge is still too strong.” He took his suit coat off, rolled up his cuffs. “You _know_ that. You know what it would do to someone.”

“And yet you’ve brought back a fella who was connected to his own brother when he was killed, and who doesn’t have any more control over his emotions than your daughter.” He sat down on Stacker’s bed. “Hell, my own kid doesn’t have any more control over himself than Mako, and look at us. We’ve got more kills than anyone else, and he’s so strong once we get in the drift I’m starting to believe he really _can_ exceed anything I’ve ever done. This is what we raised them for, Stack. This is what they want. You need to rethink this. You _have_ to rethink it.”

“If she fails and I lose her...” Stacker closed his eyes, and Herc saw it all again, playing through Stacker’s mind like it was the day he took down Onibaba and found that lost little girl, so brave and so alone. The love washed off Stacker like the wake of a boat, and Herc let it envelop him just as he did the fall of the drift. But there was a bitter tang of fear there, too.

“If any of us fail, we all lose.” Herc moved over and Stacker sat beside him. “There are not enough of us left.” Stacker turned to him, put his palm against Herc’s cheek. He covered the hand with his own. “And I have to say it: that’s some paternalistic bullshit right there, mate,” Herc said. “She’s old enough to be a pilot. She’s qualified. You have to let her try.”

Stacker smiled. In his eyes were all the things they’d lost these past years, a constellation of souls who’d given everything to this world they defended so fiercely. It was too much, too much for any human being to handle.

Herc pulled him into a kiss, Stacker’s mouth so familiar and yet still unknown. His huge hands caressed Herc’s jaw line, thumbs rubbing the crests of his cheeks. Kissing him was like that first fall into the drift, the bottomless down that existed only in the mind, sweet, tender, exhilarating. Stacker pulled away, then rested his forehead against Herc’s. With his hands on Stacker’s shoulders, Herc pressed hard against him, the desire and the relief flooding his heart and brain until he almost couldn’t bear it. 

“I’ve missed you,” Stacker said, and pressed his forehead even harder against Herc’s, nose to nose, nearly to the point of pain. If anything would speak to how dire their straits were, it was Stacker actually confessing feelings out loud. 

“You’re talkative today,” Herc said, smiling, then kissed him again.

“I’ve had an epiphany of late,” he replied, with his brilliant white grin. There was a quality to it, though, that was like he’d forgotten how to do it. There was so little to smile about anymore.

“The end of the world does make you want to say things,” Herc said, and pulled Stacker down with him on the bunk. They were an island right now, alone together inside this stormy sea. He took the tie from around Stacker’s neck, unbuttoning the collar and kissing the base of his throat. Stacker’s hands ranged across Herc’s torso, eventually arriving at his belt, unhooking it as he nipped at Herc’s ear. He sat up to unbuckle his boots -- why the bloody hell had he worn boots with so many buckles when he knew what they’d get up to as soon as they could? -- and Stacker peeled off his impeccable shirt, then his singlet.

Herc had always loved seeing his hands on Stacker’s skin, his own pale, pale flesh in such stark relief to Stacker’s darkness. Warm and cool, a composition of contrast, yin and yang creating balance in their bodies together. Just like in the drift, Stacker’s composure and solemnity, Herc’s passion and energy, swirling, combining extremes, creating something new.

That was the way Stack entered Herc, body and mind, a revelation each time. Their selves in tandem, moving as they did in the drift, the connection made manifest in flesh and muscle, the mingling moans of pleasure and desire. When he felt Stacker come, hips jerking hard against him, Herc reached up and twined his fingers with Stacker’s. He stayed there above Herc for a few minutes, whispered, “H,” and then gently turned Herc on his back, moving his mouth down to Herc’s cock, bringing his release with mouth and hands and certain knowledge of everything that moved Herc.

Stacker wiped his mouth, slid up next to him, relaxing for the first time in what Herc assumed to be months. It wouldn’t last. “I should go,” he said. Herc checked to make sure there were no signs of this being too much for Stacker’s health, but everything seemed fine, so far at least.

“No, you shouldn’t,” Herc said, still taking panting little breaths. Stacker put his hand on Herc’s belly, and he idly stroked his fingers across it, admiring that contrast again. 

“It feels like weakness to do this in the midst of this nightmare,” Stacker mused.

“Bullshit. Needing someone isn’t weakness. You don’t believe that, mate, I know you don’t.” But a sliver of doubt worked its way under his skin. What if Stacker had buckled under the weight of everything he carried, saw himself now as fragile?

His fingers absently stroked back and forth across Herc’s skin, giving him gooseflesh and stirring his craving again. “No, I don’t.”

“I’m not here to cause problems for you, Stack. I’m here to be a good pilot, to help you win this fight. I’m your second, behind you all the way, me and Chuck, Striker. I have your six.”

“You always have done.” Stacker closed his eyes, as if he could finally let himself go, but in a heartbeat the Marshal was back and he said, “I should go.” Still, he didn’t move. Herc smiled, maybe even allowed himself a smirk.

“You need some sleep,” he said against his lover’s temple. Would Stacker do the right thing, let Mako make the attempt to establish compatibility with Becket? Could he let go of his own fears enough to see that he was crushing her spirit by trying to protect her? “Choi can handle things,” Herc said with a soft laugh, and pushed Stacker back down as he rose to leave. He cupped his hand over the crown of Herc’s head. They lay on their sides and stared at each other, lost in the timeless now, the endless before, memories of their minds connected in the drift and their bodies connected in passion, flowing out along the thread. It pushed down on Herc’s heart, crushing the breath out of him. There was everything to say, and nothing at all.

 

2.  
In the morning, Stacker took the lift to meet Mako for the trials, smoothing his jacket and composing himself as much as he could. She had long understood his relationship with Hercules, telling him, when she was a young teenager, that “you are happy only when Ranger Hansen is with you.” Which hadn’t been true, of course, because he was also happy when he was with Mako, and they seemed to be winning the kaiju war. What she meant, of course, was that he could place his cares behind him for a while when he was with Herc: memories of Luna and Tamsin and all those he had lost abated, helping to abate Herc’s own losses. 

His daughter had trouble seeing past her desire to be a Jaeger pilot; she was as single-minded as Chuck Hansen had been, both of them the children of their fathers. Stacker was certain Mako knew he loved her, but doubt must have breached that perception of love whenever he told her no. The look on her face as she stood beside Raleigh, her deep sense of honor to and respect for him at war with her need -- almost her obsession -- to kill kaiju hurt him worse than the cancer spreading through his body.

As soon as he’d said no in the Kwoon Room, he saw Herc slip away from where he’d watched, outside of the crowd of crew and pilots. Whose disappointment in him was worse, Herc’s or Mako’s? Their expectations were heavier than anyone else’s.

He made his way to the office off the command deck. Herc was already there, discussing something with Choi, still checking out Striker Eureka’s systems after their long journey from Sydney to make sure they were completely battle ready. Striker wasn’t just another Jaeger to Herc; it was his second child, he babied it the way he would a toddler.

But Herc dropped what he was doing, and followed him silently into the room. “I don’t want to hear it,” Stacker said, raising a warning hand.

“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re gonna hear it.” Herc’s low, rough voice curled through his belly, kindling a desire he didn’t have time for right now. He sat on the edge of a console, swinging his leg back and forth, the metal plate on the front of his boot glinting in the blue control lights.

“When Chuck was a little kid, he had fears of monsters under the bed and in the wardrobe. So every night I inspected his room, and we talked or read a story, and I left a light on for him. Eventually he grew out of it, because he was strong and brave, the way Mako was when you found her.”

Stacker didn’t know why Herc was telling him this, because he knew it all, had seen it in their drifts together. But Herc squinted at him, his pale blue eyes boring a hole into Stacker’s feigned disinterest, yanking on that thread of connection and throwing him off balance. Stacker stopped moving, sat down, and gave Herc his full attention.

“And then one day, there really _were_ monsters. He was old enough to understand I hadn’t lied to him, but young enough that I don’t think he’s ever felt like he could trust anything or anyone again. He knows I was forced to...that I made a terrible decision. I see it in the drift -- like he wants to prove something to me. Prove he’s better than me, that he wouldn’t have lied or he wouldn’t have had to make a choice. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it.” Herc dropped his head, sighing. “I didn’t do a great job raising him on my own. For fuck’s sake, I raised him in a machine. In the military. But I knew the second he said he wanted to be a pilot, that he wanted to be _my_ co-pilot, that he would be the best at it because he was my son. Because he’d been so brave and strong in the face of everything he’d seen and lost, no matter how scared and betrayed he might have felt.”

Stacker sighed, as if all the air had left his lungs and he’d taken his last breath. He wanted to run his hand over Herc’s ginger beard, feel his heart beat against his chest. “It isn’t the same. Her emotions...” 

“You mean like your emotions when Tamsin collapsed in the middle of a fight? Like Raleigh’s emotions losing his brother while he was still connected to him? Like the emotions of _every other fucking Ranger who’s died in this war_ the moment they knew they’d lost their fight?”

Stacker shook his head and made a sweeping motion with his hand, as if he could negate what Herc was saying. “I hate it when you do this.”

“Write me up and put me on notice,” Herc responded with a shrug.

“Bastard.”

“Too right, mate, too right.” He went over and clasped Stacker’s wrist, leaned down and rested his forehead against Stacker’s. Herc smelled like leather and soap, his skin warm and comforting. “I have some things to finish on Striker.”

Stacker closed his eyes, letting Herc’s voice wrap around his spine, giving him strength again. “And I have something to give to Miss Mori.”

Herc nodded, kissed Stacker, and walked out. He watched him go, laughing inside with the familiar awe at this man’s unique ability to make him do things he didn’t want to.

The first time he’d met Hercules Hansen, Stacker had recognized that he’d met the bravest human he would ever know. He was as close to being utterly fearless as a person could be, taking risks in the earliest days of the Jaeger program that no one else would. And it reminded Stacker so very much of his sister. Nothing scared Herc Hansen, everything interested him; he’d been a career soldier, a fighter. He was as likely to jump out of an airplane or get in the ring for a fight as he was to read a book on philosophy or sit for a tea party with Mako -- or to open himself up to a relationship with another man. Stacker had been with men before he became a Ranger, but Herc had never even contemplated it, as far as Stacker was aware. 

Yet he hadn’t hesitated after he and Stacker had tested to find who they would be drift compatible with, asking Stacker to his quarters for a drink, staring him down with those light blue eyes and that gentle, smirking grin, daring him to turn their compatibility into something else. They had talked for hours, drinking and laughing, both of them having said more words that night than they probably did in a year. Stacker hadn’t wanted to make a move on him, there were more test compatibility scenarios coming up and he hadn’t wanted to influence them with personal contact outside the program. But as Stacker had left the room that night, Herc trailed his fingers along Stacker’s palm, sending current through his body, igniting a desire he hadn’t known since K-day changed everything and war had taken over their lives.

Nothing had happened until after their first deployment, to take down a kaiju near Vancouver Island. As they’d made their way back to the shatterdome, Herc had formed a picture in his mind, the two of them entwined, dark and light, legs curled together. He hadn’t known how to respond except to let the thought in, accept it. After the obligatory kaiju-kill celebrations, Stacker had found Hercules, waiting for him in Stacker’s own bunk, a confident grin on his face.

There had been no point in wasting time with preliminaries. “You sure about this?” Stacker had asked. The afterimage from the drift had played in his mind throughout the debrief, the celebrations, like a song he couldn’t get rid of.

“I’m not one to waver,” Herc had responded, unbuttoning his utility vest, pulling his shirt off. His skin was so pale, his belly taut, the tattoos on his arms bright against the ivory flesh. Stacker had placed his hand on Herc’s chest, admiring the dissimilarity in color and texture, then slid it up to his strong shoulder, before finally grabbing the back of his neck to pull him in for a kiss.

“No, you’re not,” Stacker said, tasting him, experiencing him in the flesh the way they’d experienced each other in their minds, their souls, earlier that day. “You’re one brave motherfucker,” he muttered as Herc’s hands undid his belt, then slid his trousers off.

“Takes one to know one,” Herc said. “Shut up and show me the ropes. I haven’t done this way before.” He hated it when people commented on his character -- that particular Aussie disdain for someone who stood out or thought he was above anyone else -- always believing that deeds trumped words. 

“Stacker,” Herc had whispered, pulling him down on to the bed, and Stacker had never loved his name until Herc had sighed it against his mouth.

Throughout the war, they remained as close as anyone could within the limits of their assignments, even after Herc was stationed back in Sydney and Stacker had paired with Tamsin in the Coyote Tango, their territory surrounding Tokyo. Whether they spoke by video or saw each other at command, they picked up where they left off, griping and bragging about their children, sharing worries about the war, and just simply needing each other. There was no one else Stacker could afford to be that raw with, could allow himself to show need to. After the program had been defunded, he’d barely needed to explain his idea when Herc had said, “I’ll be there.” Stacker had no doubt that Herc would die for him, with him.

Everyone liked Hercules Hansen, and Herc liked everyone back -- unless they gave him a good reason not to. He was a careful observer, a thoughtful man underneath the bravado, and he didn’t share his wisdom about life with just anyone. When Herc told you to do something, you listened.

It was time to let Mako go. 

 

3.  
“I’m getting tired of apologizing for my kid,” Herc said to him when they were in Stacker’s office, and shook his head, hands balling up into fists over and over. 

“He’s lucky he’s a good Ranger,” Stacker said, running his fingers across the corners of his mouth. “He’s lucky he’s part of my life.” It was rare when Herc couldn’t read Stacker, and right then he couldn’t tell if this was more rage at himself, disappointment at Herc, or frustration with Mako. This clusterfuck was only possible with everyone’s participation, he supposed. “We haven’t room for his issues. He’s one of the only assets we have left, and getting into fights that could disrupt the mission--”

“I know. I’ll give him a gobful.”

“You’re going to have to do more than that.” He deserved the dressing down, Herc knew that, but it still stung to have Stacker talk to him like that.

“I’ve never heard him speak to Mako like that. He was practically raised with her. I know he doesn’t believe that she’s a liability. He can’t do. Something else is going on.”

There was a little shift in Stacker’s posture, nothing anyone else would notice but Herc, and he dropped his head, looking up at Herc under his brows. “He’s afraid we’re all going to die. He’s probably right.”

“If you really believe that, then what the bloody hell are we all doing here?” For the first time Herc was actually angry at Stacker, though he wasn’t certain how much of that was redirected from his rage at his son.

Stacker sat down, pressing a handkerchief to his nose. The blood bloomed across the fabric, and then he quietly put it away in his pocket, as Herc’s heart splintered into a thousand pieces. He knelt down next to him, both hands on Stacker’s arm. This wasn’t about Chuck’s bad behavior.

“You haven’t failed anyone. The only reason any of us are here is because of you. I know it feels like a Hail Mary. But you gotta believe that we believe in you. Because you earned it.”

Stacker wove his fingers through Herc’s. “I have to go now. I’ll see you later.” He smiled, but it was tinged with such sadness that Herc was almost knocked backward. In all these years of war, he’d never seen such resignation in Stacker’s eyes. “But don’t just be Chuck’s co-pilot. Be his leader this time. He needs to see that.”

Herc stood up and nodded. He had always seen some of himself in Chuck -- not the disposition toward arrogance, or the desire to shame others as a way to displace his own self-doubt, but the anger, the recklessness. Those were things he’d learned to control with age and the wisdom that came with loss. But Chuck’s upbringing was so far from normal that Herc couldn’t really begrudge him that anger, accepted his problems as the cross he had to bear. Where Stacker saw his daughter’s rage against the kaiju as a liability, Hercules recognized that his son’s fury made him a better warrior. 

He left Stacker to deal with Raleigh and Mako -- no doubt there would be punishment involved. Raleigh deserved better, and Herc had to hope Stacker would see that when the next kaiju came through the breach. As deeply as he was connected to Stacker, there were still places their minds didn’t meet. 

In the first attacks on Sydney, his soul had been lost completely -- it wasn’t just losing his wife, but the terrible way he’d lost her, the burden of decisions he could never hope to live down. Even after signing up for the PPDC, Herc couldn’t see a way back to the man he’d been before. But then he’d met Stacker Pentecost, a breathtakingly handsome, brilliant man with a comic-book hero’s name -- something Hercules Hansen could easily relate to -- who turned all his beliefs upside-down.

Attraction to a man had surprised Herc, but he’d always been of the opinion that life was unpredictable, and you lived it as much as you could. The lure of Stacker had started as a kind of curious fascination, watching him in training trials, working with him when the Jaeger program was still more theoretical than practical. He was solemn and subtly confrontational in those early days, challenging every thought, every blue-sky idea, and every person who thought to challenge him in return. Desire, need, curiosity had all followed quickly, maybe less of a surprise to Herc than to Stacker, who seemed almost confused at first over Herc’s interest. 

It would have been easy to approach it as something to get out of his system, to fuck the man and move on. Instead Stacker became his friend as well as his lover, a relationship rooted in the drift, carried out by their bodies, something so deep it didn’t have a name. 

They had tried to keep it away from the kids, primarily for Chuck’s sake. Herc knew it would be too soon for him to accept the idea that anyone could fill a spot in his father’s life. But one night in Lima, instead of Stacker returning to his quarters as usual, he’d fallen asleep in Herc’s. In the morning they had wakened to Chuck and Mako arguing over which kaiju was worse, playing at piloting a Jaeger, and knew they had to let it out in the open. When the kids saw Stacker exit Herc’s bedroom, Mako acted as though she didn’t notice or care, respecting their adult privacy; Chuck became even more closed off, distant, a behavior that would prove to last for years. Herc had regretted not sitting down with him before, one of a thousand mistakes he’d made with his son since the day his mother had died.

In the years after that, Chuck had behaved diffidently to, yet at least fond of, Stacker. As hotheaded as his son was, Herc could never accuse Chuck of being anything less than respectful of the Marshal, at least until now. As things grew ever more desperate, though, his son needed to lash out. Herc got that. Everyone was on edge, everyone had suffered. But Herc didn’t want their legacy as a family to be the memory of his son as an arrogant shithead, if they really were in the final hours.

After the door closed, Herc went out into the corridor and grabbed Chuck by the back of the neck, hauling him toward the bay and Striker Eureka. “Oi. There’s a thing or two you need to hear.” Chuck, wisely for once, chose to shut up.

 

4.  
“A flare gun?” Stacker asked again, trying to get the words out in between bouts of laughter he couldn’t control. It was not a time to laugh, not after losing both the Wei triplets and the Kaidonovskys, and nearly losing the Hansens. “I’d say you were taking the piss, but I know you.”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You are one insane Strayan motherfucker, you know that? A flare gun.” He pressed his fingers to the orbital bones of his eyes, rubbing around in circles, trying to stop the bubbling laughter that threatened to erupt again.

“Best sight I’ve ever seen was Gispy coming up behind that bastard, though. I was pretty sure we were gonna bite it at that point.” Herc shifted his am in the sling, said, “Anyway, here I am. No good to anyone.”

“Good to me.” Stacker touched his shoulder. “How bad is it?”

“Busted. It’d be OK if I could move it, if it was just pain, but it’s not really capable of taking any pressure. No way I can handle the conn-pod, and I don’t even know if the armor would fit around the swelling.”

They heard a rising tide of voices from down below on the deck. “They’re back,” Stacker said, and motioned for Hercules to go. “I’ll be right there.” He wanted an extra moment to compose himself, didn’t want anyone to see that he’d actually laughed at something during such a bitter time. And Herc might as well go down first; he would have to step up as marshal now. Stacker would have to pilot. No one else was qualified to handle a Mark V.

But Herc didn’t go; he shook his head, let out a small puff of breath. “The worst thought wasn’t that that fucker was going to kill us. It was that you’d be so disappointed in me.” Herc stepped forward, pressing his forehead to Stacker’s. The door to the medical bay was open, but neither of them gave a shit if someone saw. “We couldn’t just stand there.”

“You didn’t have to. I said _at your discretion._ I’ve never given an order I didn’t mean.” Stacker breathed Herc in; he was like that first hit of oxygen after you stepped out of a Jaeger and took your helmet off. “No regrets, not ever.”

They stood that way for a while, eyes closed, holding fast to each other. Like the engagement of the neural handshake, that moment when you dropped into the other’s consciousness, memories and emotions spreading out through you like blood flowing. You knew that hit was coming, you knew how it would feel, and yet every time it took your breath away, your legs shook and your heart beat just that little bit faster.

Herc patted his arm and went down to welcome and congratulate Raleigh and Mako, while Stacker followed a few paces behind. All this time he’d tried to save Mako from risking her life, and now he’d made a decision to end his own by going back out. Stacker had never appreciated irony much; appreciated it even less now. How did Hercules do it, time after time, letting his son in that machine, knowing each time it might be his last? This act, this selfless, insane act of being a Ranger, of letting his only child pilot a Jaeger, must kill him a little bit at a time, the same way the cancer was killing Stacker. 

He stayed back a ways, watching Herc with Raleigh and Mako, Chuck holding back behind him. Their children, this war. Both raised to be warriors and knowing only a life that could end at any moment, war-torn souls who had no reason to believe in a better day. And yet they did.

Stacker’s pride in Mako reverberated through his body like the ringing of a bell, and he could not suppress a smile when he told them both he had never seen such fighting. She brought honor to all of the fallen: Luna, Tamsin, her parents. Yancy Becket and every Ranger who’d ever lost the fight. Herc’s wife. They would be proud of these heroes, this broken young man and his courageous, damaged daughter, a son who’d known only the soul of a machine. 

Mako had been his whole world for so long. Now the whole world needed her, and it needed Stacker as well. To honor them, he had to let go of his daughter, and of Herc.

 

5.  
While they checked out Gipsy and refitted Striker, Herc found Stacker in his quarters. There was a little time before they went back out, the kaiju apparently not in any hurry to make land. He knew what Stacker had in mind, had done since the moment Stacker had touched his arm in the sling, the thoughtful look on his face. There weren’t any choices here, they had both known that.

Stacker stood in front of a wardrobe that held his old circuitry suit, the armor in a pile underneath it. “I’ll help you get it on,” Herc said behind him, and Stacker turned, a gentle smile playing across his face. It was no surprise that Stacker had kept the kit, put it in his room where he could remind himself of the glory days.

“You knew.”

“Bloody oath I knew. And I’m not here to argue with you. It’s the only decision.” But the specter of his loss made Herc shudder inside; all these years Stacker’s illness had been kept at bay, and somehow Herc could believe he would outlast it, overcome it, because he was Stacker fucking Pentecost and nothing would beat him.

“I asked Becket that day where he’d rather die, here or in a Jaeger. I think now I was asking myself.”

“Going out the way you want to...” He had some kind of heroic horseshit to say, but it drifted away in the air, and his throat ached with the sadness he held back. There were all the reasons to say something, and no reasons good enough.

Stacker took his shirt off, undid his trousers, holding the circuitry suit in one hand. With his other hand, he grabbed Herc’s good arm and pulled him close. “I need to feel you on my skin. I need to know you one last time.”

Herc sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m your man.”

Herc pulled him to the bunk, Stacker dropping the suit on the floor. As he tried to undo the sling, he struggled with the awkwardness, so Stacker took care of that and his clothes in short order, kissing Herc’s mouth, his chest, holding Herc against him. Fear, desire, pain, sadness, all swarmed through his mind even as his body responded solely with need. Stacker hooked a leg over Herc’s side, holding him tightly, his thrusts creating a sweet friction of their cocks against each other’s, soft panting the only sound in the room. 

Herc was undone and restored by Stacker’s need, his climax like the first moments of a drift, sharp, intense, overwhelming in its power. He put his hand over Stacker’s cock, adding to the friction, the heat of their bodies overpowering his senses, and then Stacker came silently, bucking against him. 

Herc pulled him closer, running his hand over Stacker’s arm again and again. “I don’t know if I know how to live in a world without you in it.” All he could see was the emptiness that Stacker had filled returning to his life.

“It would have happened at some point.” Stacker put his arm over Herc’s side, gently maneuvering around the broken arm. “Even I can’t beat cancer.”

Herc closed his eyes, soaking in the texture of Stacker’s skin, his scent, the sound of his voice. He wanted to slow it down, let it ride for as long as they could, but this was the end of the line. “Let’s get you in that kit and then to the drivesuit room,” Herc said, so he could tamp down the emotions with a plan of action. They cleaned themselves up wordlessly, and Herc dressed again and put the sling back on. 

After he’d got the last of the body armor on Stacker, he pressed his mouth hard to Stacker’s cheek, stayed there for a while. “I need you to come back to me,” Herc said against his warm skin.

“That’s the outcome I hope for,” Stacker answered, his palm heavy against the back of Herc’s neck. 

“I’m going to see to Chuck,” Herc said, and broke away. Herc understood the desire to die doing what you were meant to -- but he was selfish, and wanted his son and his friend to return to him.

“H,” Stacker said quietly as Herc turned back to him. “There’s something I promised Chuck a long time ago I wouldn’t tell you.”

Raising an eyebrow, Herc said, “More secrets, eh?”

“The day he graduated the Jaeger Academy. He told me at the ceremony that he understood why you and I were together. He didn’t begrudge you that. But he wanted to live up to your legend, and he was intimidated by that.”

A cold sliver pierced his heart, bleeding out all those memories in the drift. “I know. I knew. Never did understand what to do with it, though.”

Christ, there was so much love here, the way they all needed each other and had found the courage to carry on only in one another’s love. In the face of the impossible, there was hope. Herc nodded at Stacker, and left.

 

6.  
“Stop the clock.” Herc was happy to say the words, truly happy. But it would never hold the relief and joy for him that it did for the others. What was left for him now?

He stared at the map on the screen. Something scratched at the back of his brain, a subtle itch he couldn’t reach. As soon as they had located Raleigh’s pod, it had begun, and he didn’t know what it meant. He turned back to the crew, their celebration bringing a sad smile to his face, while Max barked again and again. The thread that had connected him to Stacker and to Chuck...it didn’t feel severed. That was it. Like it was still there, pulled tightly. Max looked up at him, as if telling Herc that something was out there.

They could have ejected, maybe at the last second. It was unlikely, but he’d never count Stacker or his son out for doing the impossible, both of them were crazy bastards. They would have been blasted out of range. It was a ridiculous hope. It was magical thinking, but just maybe.

Herc took over the conn from Choi, told him to go celebrate. He wanted to take a look around, see if anything blipped in the great expanse of their territory. There probably wasn’t the faintest shot at finding anything, but Chuck had said it at the end: if you had a shot, you should take it.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from The Wind in the Willows.
> 
> I've tried to follow the canon of the movie as much as possible, but there are details in the ancillary materials that contradict some of the movie, and vice versa. So some of this is just head canon, too.


End file.
